OF A WAR WITH SPAIN. 205 



men were gone to land, and our ships ready to depart. 

 Nevertheless the admiral, with such ships only as 

 could suddenly be put in readiness, made forth to 

 wards them ; insomuch as of one hundred ships, 

 there came scarce thirty to work. Howbeit, with 

 them, and such as came daily in, we set upon them, 

 and gave them the chase. But the Spaniards, for 

 want of courage, which they called commission, de 

 clined the fight, casting themselves continually into 

 roundels, their strongest ships walling in the rest, 

 and in that manner they made a flying march to 

 wards Calais. Our men by the space of five or six 

 days followed them close, fought with them continu 

 ally, made great slaughter of their men, took two of 

 their great ships, and gave divers others of their 

 ships their death s wounds, whereof soon after they 

 sank and perished ; and, in a word, distressed them 

 almost in the nature of a defeat ; we ourselves in 

 the mean time receiving little or no hurt. Near 

 Calais the Spaniards anchored, expecting their land- 

 forces, which came not. It was afterwards alleged, 

 that the duke of Parma did artificially delay his 

 coming; but this was but an invention and pre 

 tension given out by the Spaniards ; partly upon a 

 Spanish envy against that duke, being an Italian, 

 and his son a competitor to Portugal ; but chiefly to 

 save the monstrous scorn and disreputation, which 

 they and their nation received by the success of that 

 enterprise. Therefore their colours and excuses,, 

 forsooth, were, that their general by sea had a limited 

 commission, not to fight until the land forces were 



